[mturmon]

I have done a lot of punchdown jack connections, and a few crimp connections, and I have to agree that the punchdown connections (into a female jack which receives a patch cord, and the patch cord goes to the device) have been much more deterministic. It is rare when one does not work the first time.

I wasn't using structured cabling, just ordinary Cat5e cable.

But I think for a security camera, as in the parent comment, which may be getting PoE, the tidiest connection would use a crimp-down male RJ45. I would not enjoy being up on a ladder fussing with a crimping tool and 8 stubby wires.

[DrPhish]

Still better to put a jack (facing down!) into a surface mount box and patch into the camera. When you are working with outdoor gear, put the surface mount box into a waterproof jbox. Even if you are going into gear with a gasket that requires you to crimp an end on a patch cable, it's still better to do it this way. Jack-to-jack lasts so much longer and is so much more reliable, I will almost never allow crimped ends anywhere in my networks. Patch cables are a commodity, horizontal runs are an investment.